Thursday, the Motion Pictures Association of America and its rating arm, the Classification and Ratings Association, changed its position on an R rating for Lee Hirsch’s documentary, which spotlights five victims of bullying and their families.

The film, which opened March 30 in a few markets, was released unrated by the Weinstein Company, the indie distributor.

Despite vociferous hew and cry from child advocates, celebs and politicians, as well as former bullied teenager Katy Butler’s 500,000-plus petition, “Bully” opened unrated in a number of cities on March 30. This allowed theaters to treat it as a R-rated film. Or, as in the case of the Cinemark chain, not show the movie at all.

Thursday morning, Cinemark Theatres issued a statement saying “Cinemark has a long history of not playing unrated films and we do not think it is appropriate to undermine the system by arbitrarily applying our own rating to this movie.”

Lisa Kennedy has been The Denver Post film critic for quite a spell. The job returned her to the town she grew up in after 20 years of living elsewhere: mostly in New York City. During the time she's been back, she was voted into the National Society of Film Critics, a first for a Colorado reviewer. When she began Diary of a Mad Moviegoer, she wasn't just cribbing from Tyler Perry. In fact, she seldom goes all Madea on movies, thinking the gig is more like a conversation than a competition about who's right about which flick.